1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to the technical field of image forming apparatuses and backup and restore processing methods.
2. Description of the Related Art
In recent years, there is generally known an image forming apparatus in which functions of devices such as a printer, a copier, a fax machine, and a scanner are accommodated in a single body. In this kind of multifunctional image forming apparatus, a display unit, a printing unit, and an image pickup unit are provided in a single body, and three kinds of applications corresponding to a printer, a copier, and a fax machine are provided. By switching the applications, the image forming apparatus operates as a printer, a copier, a scanner, or a fax machine.
As described above, as an increased number of functions are provided in an image forming apparatus, the number of items to be set in the image forming apparatus increases. A wide variety of items are usually manually set by a serviceman or an administrator, from an operation panel provided on the image forming apparatus or a Web screen of a PC (personal computer) connected to the image forming apparatus via a network. Specific examples of setting items are a “register program” storing setting modes that the user frequently uses with the device, “a fax address list”, and selected values of various setting modes that are used at the time of activating the device (default settings).
Given such a background, when multiple image forming apparatus are installed in a customer's environment, and the serviceman has to manually set setting information (parameters) unique to the customer in each and every installed device, it is time consuming to install the devices, and operation errors may occur in the work.
There is known a technology of reading setting information set in a single image forming apparatus (backup), and writing the setting information in other image forming apparatuses (restore) (see, for example, patent document 1). The serviceman manually sets setting information unique to the customer in only one image forming apparatus. The same setting can be set for all image forming apparatuses simply by applying the setting information that has been set in the first device to the other image forming apparatus. Therefore, the work efficiency is significantly improved. There may be cases where the setting information (parameters) may be partially different in some of the image forming apparatuses. However, at least the common setting information (parameters) can be applied to all image forming apparatuses, and the serviceman only has to change part of the setting information (parameters). Therefore, the work efficiency is significantly improved in this case also.
Furthermore, it is also useful to save the setting information for recovery purposes when a failure occurs in the image forming apparatus. When the image forming apparatus breaks down due to a failure, by applying the setting information that has been read from the device, the original setting state can be quickly recovered.
The setting information can be acquired by using a storage medium such as a USB memory or a management terminal connected by a network.
For example, when using a USB memory, the serviceman connects a USB memory to the image forming apparatus for which settings have been completed, and saves the setting information in the USB memory to acquire the setting information. When writing (restoring) the setting information in another image forming apparatus, the USB memory is connected to another image forming apparatus, and the another image forming apparatus is caused to read the setting information.
Furthermore, when a management terminal is used, the serviceman operates the management terminal, and acquires setting information via the network from the image forming apparatus for which settings have been completed. When writing (restoring) the setting information in another image forming apparatus, the another image forming apparatus is caused to read the setting information via the network.
However, in the conventional technology, details of the result of executing backup/restore (successful/unsuccessful, the location of the failure and the reason when unsuccessful) are only displayed on the operation panel or the screen of the management terminal immediately after the execution. Therefore, when the user wants to collectively confirm the execution results of backup/restore performed for plural image forming apparatuses, or when the user wants to confirm the execution result of backup/restore on a later date, the user cannot confirm the execution results. This causes inconveniences in terms of managing the setting information.    Patent Document 1: Japanese Laid-Open Patent Publication No. 2007-128493